Obama targets tea bags at town hall

At his 100th-day town hall meeting in St. Louis Wednesday, President Barack Obama took direct aim at the anti-tax “tea party” demonstrations that have cropped up over the last month and took a veiled shot at the Fox News Channel, the cable news network closely associated with the protests.

Asked about fiscal discipline and entitlements reform, Obama seemed to be repressing a smile as he jabbed critics of his spending plans.

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"Those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I'm not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, Obama said, “let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security.”

“But,” Obama continued, “let's not play games and pretend that the reason [for the deficit] is because of the Recovery Act."

It’s the president’s most direct response so far to the protests that flared up in some locations around tax day, on April 15.

In his briefing that day, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters: “I don't know if there's a specific response to protests..I think you saw the president today talk about as candidate Obama promising to bring a tax cut to 95 percent of working families in America, and as president delivering that tax cut.”